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- Help with '!Crypt' version 1.00 (28-Feb-1990)
-
- (C) Stephen Early 1990. This program is in the
- Public Domain. It may be freely distributed,
- provided that this text file is distributed with it
- unchanged.
-
-
- !Crypt is a file encryptor. It uses two passwords
- to encrypt a file in such a way that it is
- impossible to obtain the original version of the
- file from the encrypted one without the passwords.
- (For those interested, the encoding/decoding is done
- using exclusive-ORing, in PROCencdec at the end of
- the program.)
-
- !Crypt is installed by double-clicking on its icon
- in a Filer window. Its icon appears on the icon bar.
- Clicking on this icon brings up the password window.
- The user must choose two passwords, both different,
- and enter them into the boxes in the window. Please
- note that the passwords ARE case sensitive, and are
- displayed on the screen as '*' characters to
- prevent anybody from reading them over your
- shoulder. Once you have entered the two passwords,
- press Enter with the caret in the "Password 2" box,
- or click on "OK" to store the passwords. Clicking on
- "Cancel" will wipe the two passwords from memory.
-
- Once you have entered the two passwords, the
- password box disappears. It can be brought up again
- by clicking on the icon, and the passwords can be
- edited. Dragging a file from a directory viewer to
- the Crypt icon will bring up a Save box. Change the
- filename inside this box to the name that you want
- to save the file under, and drag the file icon to a
- directory viewer. There will be a pause while the
- file is encrypted. (This will be speeded up in a
- later version.) Once the file has been encrypted,
- the passwords are erased from memory. It is up to
- you to erase the original file.
-
- Decoding a file is almost the same as encoding
- one. Enter the passwords that were used to encrypt
- the file, and drag the encrypted file to the Crypt
- icon. A Save box will appear with the icon of the
- original file. Change the filename to the one you
- want, and drag the icon to a directory viewer. The
- file will be decrypted. If the passwords were
- incorrect, then the "decrypted" file will just be
- rubbish - random characters.
-
- Technical notes
- --------- -----
-
- I have used filetype &1EC for encrypted files.
- This is officially a "user" filetype - for
- individual users to do whatever they like with. If
- this clashes with a filetype used by another program
- then just change all occurences of the strings "1EC"
- and "1ec" into whatever filetype you choose - the
- Basic editor is good for this. Also, the name of the
- "file_1ec" sprite in the !Sprites file must be
- changed.
-
- The next version of this program will grab all the
- available free memory (from the Wimp's "Free" slot)
- while encrypting and decrypting, and use machine
- code to speed things up. The use of this larger
- buffer should mean that encryption is no longer a
- very slow process!
-